Over the years, many different racks for different garments have been described. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,343,683 a sock rack is shown wherein a number of cloth pins are mounted on a bar. The handles of the pins are pierced by a rod so that the normally closed parts can be opened along a direction that is parallel to the connecting rod to grip a sock between them. In U.S. Pat. No. 1,759,202 a collar and tie storage cabinet are described wherein a pair of hinged arms are vertically and outwardly displaced from each other to each store neckties in vertically displaced locations.
In U. S. Pat. No. 4,327,837 a rod is used to support Velcro type fasteners with which belts are supported. Ties are held by loops that are affixed with Velcro fasteners to a tie rack. U.S. Pat. No. 1,937,646 teaches a clothes drier in which a plurality of clothespins are mounted side by side on cross pieces. A garment hanger with spring loaded clamps to hold the articles is shown in U. S. Pat. No. 2,640,598.
Though these prior garment hanging devices can be useful for ties, problems tend to arise when these prior art techniques need to be effective in the organizing, storing, and retrieving of ties in the small spaces often provided in small closets and/or on the moveable surfaces of an open closet door. Many ties need to be stored and often a fixed arrangement of the clips used to hold the ties makes it difficult to accommodate the number of ties that need to be stored. The fixed arrangement of the clips also makes it difficult to see and to organize the ties and to open the clips, particularly when the device is anchored on a moveable door. The nature of a tie itself with its slippery silk fabric and long shape further adds to these difficulties.
A need, therefore, exists to provide a rack system in which the articles are conveniently hung and mounted in a dense and yet visible manner while at the same time providing for a method to ease the insertion and removal of the articles from the rack regardless of whether or not the rack is hung on a door or wall and without knocking other articles off the rack in the process.